Word: nuclear
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that the offensive side in missile warfare always has the advantage, that it can cheaply and easily offset any improvement in defenses. This theory also presupposes antagonists of roughly equal strength and technological development. The equations all changed when, in the mid-'60s, the Chinese developed their own rudimentary nuclear program. Now there were two threats to consider, and pro-ABM pressure rose accordingly...
...years the Peking regime, which is vitriolic and unpredictable in its self-imposed isolation, will theoretically be able to hit the U.S. with nuclear missiles. Although the U.S. could destroy China as a modern society even more easily than it could the Soviet Union, a touch of yellow-menace fever has set in. "The Chinese are different," argues one general. "They have no regard for human life. Imagine if the Red Guards had got their hands on a couple of ICBMs!" At the same time, the Russians resisted Lyndon Johnson's initial attempts to open negotiations aimed at checking...
...course, is theoretical. Dr. Jerome Wiesner of M.I.T., who was John Kennedy's science adviser, notes that Sentinel is "untestable" under anything approaching simulated combat conditions. The warheads have been detonated in underground explosions, to be sure, and the missiles that carry them have been launched, but the 1963 nuclear Test-Ban Treaty prohibits nuclear explosions in space. Even without this veto, it would be fantastically difficult to stage a realistic war game featuring...
...system. How long our ABM could keep ahead of them is open to question. It may be a few years?or months." Other specialists point out that if the Chinese really wanted to risk obliteration, ABM would not be an insuperable barrier. They could smuggle in the parts of nuclear bombs and use saboteurs rather than missiles. Either the Chinese or the Russians could attempt germ warfare if they feared nuclear defeat. Short-range attacks from submarines sneaking close to the coasts is also a possibility?and one that ABM might not be able to cope with...
...fanatic nucleo-phobes. Dr. David Inglis, senior physicist at the Argonne National Laboratory, concluded in a Saturday Review article that the danger deserves serious consideration. Bethe, on the other hand, says that he is untroubled by the safety aspects of Sentinel. In fact, there has been no unintentional nuclear explosion in the U.S. since the birth of the atomic age. Even when nuclear bombers crashed, their weapons failed to detonate. Says one Pentagon official: "The only way to cause a nuclear explosion in an ABM silo would be to have a specialist climb in, rewire the warhead, getting around...